Last week I came back to my room to find that my Betta, Hyperion, had died suddenly. From the way his body was stuck at the bottom, it seems he had gotten caught on one of my pieces of cholla wood; it wasn't swim bladder, he had been perfectly healthy just a few hours earlier, and the body floated once I got it out from the bottom.

So, before I even thought about getting another betta, I made an effort to rearrange the cholla pieces so that no future betta will get caught. (Dunno why/how it happened, I'd had that particular arrangement for many months. Water parameters were all good.) So far, it seems my efforts have been successful, as my new betta Domino had to test every nook and cranny in the first few hours he spent in the tank.

I've always wanted a marble betta, because I think it's cool how they keep changing colors. Went to the Petco, and there were /tons/ of marbles. I finally decided on this guy, though, because not only was he a double tail (which I think has become my favorite of the tail types) but because I had never seen such a unique color combination before--He is black and white. Or maybe black, white, and cellophane? He also has a lovely copper-ish iridescence on his fins, but my roommate's flash isn't working on her camera, so I couldn't really capture it.

He's rather a shy fish, or so I thought (he wouldn't eat the first 4 days, because my hand dropping food in was too intimidating apparently), till I brought the camera out. Turns out, he's quite the ham. He'd hold these wonderful poses for me, so I could easily take pictures.

My favorite of the photos is when he's staring at himself in the glass ball. Cute. Haven't really seen him flare yet, other than at his reflection, so... But he's just built a bubble nest, and seems pretty happy. Pardon about the slight algae problem in my tank--it never seems to go away up here. I blame high mineral content in my water.